This photo is linked from:

Discussion on SU6100

I just discovered Geograph a few days ago and was really amazed to see that after so many years all the wrecks in Forton Lake in Gosport still exist, despite information I received a long time ago via the Maritime Workshop that they were gradually being cut up and disposed of.

I first got to know them way back in the mid-1960s when as a schoolboy I got my first bike and started venturing out to explore Gosport in a bit more detail from my home base in Heaton Road (Brockhurst). The first one I ever got to know was the motor minesweeper; it's been very interesting to read about its history, of which I have to admit I knew virtually nothing until last week. The cable drum was actually in an inclined (roughly 45°) position at the beginning of the 1980s but then lay flat from about 1985 onwards.

What I'd also really like to know is how and why all the boats came to be left where they are today.

I went to live abroad in the mid-1970s but used to come back every year at Christmas (until about 2000) for a few days and usually - weather and tide permitting - took the opportunity to ride over and take a number of photos. I've got a lot dating from the 1980s and 1990s (also from other parts of Gosport) and will seriously have to think about scanning and uploading them, though it would be a very time-consuming process.

Despite what some of the contributors have said, there doesn't seem to be much deterioration in the condition of most of the wrecks in recent years as far as I can tell from the photographs - a lot of the photos could easily have been taken in the 1980s and 1990s, although I'm not exactly an archaeological expert and perhaps cannot judge this correctly.

It's a great shame that the whole of the Priddy's Hard area was opened up to boring new housing development (at least it managed to hang out more or less until the end of the century though) and that the urban farm has now disappeared as well, as the whole of the area to the east of Grove Road - the part that was actually accessible at the time that is - was like an enormous unspoiled retreat for me when I was younger. Similar to the Hardway (where I also managed to document a large number of wrecks in the 1980s and 1990s before they finally disappeared from the landscape) and the area near Fort Gilkicker I was always attracted to these areas away from the Gosport mainstream. It must have had something to do with the general aura of decay to which I was attracted and which always seemed to pervade large areas of the town before it unfortunately started to become the target of redevelopers.

If anyone's reading this it would be great to hear from you. I've no idea when I might ever come over to Gosport again, but I'm pleased and heartened to see that at least some people are still interested in Forton Lake and documenting the old wrecks.